Is Lloyd Blankfein An Accessory In the Death of Dimitris Christoulas?

Relax, folks, nothing to see here. After all, I’m sure that all that austerity-funded bond money is going towards a good cause—like gold-plating the vomitorium drains in Lloyd Blankfein’s villa on the Riviera, for instance. From the BBC’s Mark Lowen:

Protesters have clashed with riot police in the Greek capital, Athens, hours after a pensioner shot himself dead outside parliament.

The 77-year-old man killed himself in the city’s busy Syntagma Square on Wednesday morning.

Greek media reported he had left a suicide note accusing the government of cutting his pension to nothing. Flowers have been laid at the spot where he died and tributes have been paid online.

“I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance.”—Extract from reputed suicide letter

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the square outside parliament on Wednesday evening, the scene of many large protests in recent months. Violence erupted, with petrol bombs hurled at police, who fired tear gas in response. Depression and suicides are reported to have increased in Greece as the country introduces tough austerity measures to deal with huge debts …

the answer i think, is an obvious, resounding, and unequivocal, ” yes.”

Drive_like_a_demon

the answer is a resounding “no.”

Mr. Christoulas’s decision is his own. Many people lose money yet don’t kill themselves in response.

Jin The Ninja

External social and economic factors profoundly affect well-being. Depression caused by financial distress is a leading cause of suicide. If one with the power to influence policy (or write it) exerts a tremendous amount of economic and political force on an entire society, due to greed, which has resulted/results in endemic financial distress (to a majority, no less of the society), at least partial blame lies with those oligarchs-of the drastic measures everday persons take to allieviate their distress. Ethically, probably all of the fault lies with those whose greed engenders crisis on massive social levels.

Mrtchops

his own decision?
his own decision to not have enough money to eat? to pay rent? to have his utilities cut?
would this 77 year-old pensioner have reached the same decision had his most basic human needs been covered?
you keep telling yourself that we are wolf-pack of individuals and not part of a larger social milieu while the financial institutions of the world erect financial tollbooths at every level of the world economy, extracting ever increasing profits at the expense of the young, the old, the sick and the working poor… and increasingly the middle-class.
that, of course, is the hypocrisy that many of us have been guilty of. that even when condemning this system of exploitation as it has existed for centuries, our moral unction was tempered by the fact that it was only brown people that suffered.
now the parasite has grown so much that it has started feeding on white people as well…

johnnys

Today a
77 year old retired man committed suicide in Syntagma square, Greece.
He left a letter before he shot himself. Bellow is the link with the
picture and a rough translation of the letter.

Today a 77 year old retired man committed suicide in Syntagma square,
Greece. He left a letter before he shot himself.

”
The Tsolakoglou* occupation government literally
nullified my ability to survive with a decent pension,
which I had to pay (without government aid) for 35 years.

Since I am of an age that prevents me from giving a substantial response
(without of course ruling out the possibility of following a kalashnikov-wielding Greek),
I cannot find any choice other than a dignified end, before I would have to resort
to rooting through the garbage for my nutritional needs.

I believe that the youth without a future will one day take up arms and hang the
national traitors upside down at the syntagma square, as the Italians did in 1945
with Mussolini (Piazzale Loreto of Milan)

[*Georgios Tsolakoglou was a Greek military officer who became the first
Prime Minister of the Greek collaborationist government during the Axis Occupation
in 1941-1942.]
“

Alex

I know Americans like to take credit for everything happening in the world, but this crisis is primarily caused by the clique ruling Greece, aided by a lax attitude from European regulators towards the Greek economy (Greece didn’t qualify for Euro membership, but they cooked the books to make their economy look in far better shape than it actually was. A proper external audit from Europe would have brought this fraud to light.)
Hundreds of Billions of Euros in debt are being written off and hundreds more are being poured into Greece in an (IMO futile) attempt to help stave off bankrupcy. If you are going to blame bankster capitalism for this crisis, look no further than the local players.

Liam_McGonagle

I’m not sure I disagree exactly, but I do think the provocative title I gave this article is entirely appropriate, given the particular forum in which I re-posted Mr. Lowen’s article.

It’s true, the specific mechanisms by which the tragic fraud was perpetrated upon Greece will be inextricably linked with the self-interested dishonesty and incompetence of local business and political elites. But the wider problem, the problem that plagues the entire earth, and the U.S. no less so, is the irresponsibility of a disgustingly decadent and self-absorbed multi-national elite who are accountable to no one.

Without the active connivance of feckless featherbrains behind the shell game of international high finance, local elites in Greece would have found no venue to commit their crimes. Where would Greek leaders have hoped to conduct this ponzi scheme if not on the NY-dominated markets?

Yes, there are many unindicted coconspirators who need to be arrested in Greece. But I think that the least Americans could do is to make a good faith effort to keep their own criminals in check.

Alex

When you get heavily into debt you fall prey to unsavory money lenders, just like the gambler who needs to borrow from the guy on the corner with the baseball bat.

Without this weakness there is nothing to exploit. Now in the case of an individual I can see how the law should protect them from their own shortcomings, but a modern economy, a nation that claims 2500 years of high culture, should be able to stand on it’s own two feet financially and take responsibility for it’s actions. If not, then the vast majority of Greeks are like children, unfit to handle money without adult supervision. I have more faith in my fellow humans.

Greece is not the only EU country in deep financial difficulties, but it stands alone in it’s unwillingness towards reform. Spain, Portugal, and even Italy are serious in their commitment to clean up their economy and bring painful sacrifices to achieve this.

The first step in bettering yourself is to stop laying blame outside yourself. Besides, “a disgustingly decadent and self-absorbed multi-national elite who are accountable to no one” sounds too much like the Illuminati for me to take seriously.

Liam_McGonagle

I suggest you submit an article to Disinformation. It’s easy–they set up a “Submit Story” link on their main page to get users started.

There’s nothing difficult about it. Disinformation accepts submissions from any and all readers. Your article could be original, or as here, just a re-post from another media outlet, re-cast with a provocative title.

I believe that you will find Disinformation’s readers to be quite a bit more sophisticated than you may imagine.

Mrtchops

money is not being “poured” into Greece.
it is being poured into the coffers of (mainly) French and German banks.
Greek politicians are as corrupt as they come. but if this had been a purely local phenomenon their accounts could be traced, assets seized and at least some of the money returned. as it stands now, all the money (and a great deal of money in general) has disappeared into the ether of the international banking “system”.
if you want to understand what has happened in Greece, read up on the scam the U.S. has been pulling in Latin America for decades i.e. unrepayable loans, for bloated infrastructure projects, carried out by “insider” U.S. corporations, with just enough money touching down in the target country to grease the palms of local politicians. a classic economic “hit”.